Oracle Bets Big on Cloud, Makes the Co-CEO Magouyrk and Sicilia

The Oracle Corporation is taking risky steps in the cloud infrastructure market and has positioned itself as one of the major players to provide power to artificial intelligence services to the world tech giants. A Bloomberg report noted that the aggressive investment that the firm made in its cloud business, to serve its customers like OpenAI and Meta have transformed its financial path and leadership framework.

Cloud at the Core

The cloud infrastructure unit of the Oracle that constructs data centers to store and provide AI-based services is anticipated to become the biggest generator of revenue to the company shortly than the other units. To support this growth, Oracle has greatly augmented the money it spends on data center space globally. This drive, though, was at a price, as the company had negative annual cash flow in the first time since 1990.

Although the viability of the cloud strategy was questioned in the company earlier, now the leadership of Oracle sees it as the key to its long-term development. Chairman Larry Ellison stressed that fast growth of the business justifies the choice of the company to go all in on cloud.

New Leadership Model

Clay Magouyrk, 39 and Mike Sicilia, 54 have been made co-CEOs in a significant change of leadership. One of the earliest Oracle Cloud Infrastructure personnel is Magouyrk, who has been instrumental in getting the operations of the company to scale down, whereas Sicilia was the head of Oracle Industries before where she was also instrumental in the Cerner acquisition.

This notwithstanding the similar title, Magouyrk will enjoy much more compensation, as he will be at the heart of the fast-expanding cloud business. He is worth $250 million in terms of stock package, as compared to Sicilia who is worth 100 million.

Moreover, Douglas Kehring is appointed as a new principal financial officer of the company, the previous position of which was occupied by the CEO Safra Catz.

A Strategic Future

Dual CEO is not common in the technology sector, however, it has been tested by Oracle previously. Ellison was complimentary of Magouyrk and his leadership and cloud knowledge as indicators of being prepared to take on the bigger role.

Individually, the White House affirmed that Oracle will be a key pillar of the Tik Tok divestment deal, as it is already a partner in providing cloud to Tik Tok in its early days. This acquisition will increase the presence of Oracle within the international cloud and AI sector.